PART XIV - CONVENTIONS AND INTERNATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS
Section 70. Right of priority under Convention, etc.
(1) Where any person has applied for protection of any trade mark in a Convention country or prescribed foreign country, such person or his legal representative or assignee, after furnishing a declaration within the prescribed time indicating the date of the application and the country in which it was made, shall in respect of the application for registration of his trade mark, be entitled to a right of priority and such application in Malaysia shall have the same date as the date of the application for protection in the Convention country or prescribed foreign country concerned, as the case may be, subject to the following:
(a) that the application for registration is made within six months from the date of application for protection in the Convention country or prescribed foreign country concerned, as the case may be; and where an application for protection is made in more than one Convention country or prescribed foreign country, the period of six months referred to herein shall be reckoned from the date on which the earlier or earliest of those applications is made;
(b) that the applicant shall be either a national or resident of, or a body corporate-incorporated under the laws of, the Convention country or prescribed foreign country concerned, as the case may be; and
(c) that nothing in this section shall entitle the proprietor of a trade mark to recover damages for infringements or any happening prior to the date on which the application for protection of the trade mark is made in Malaysia.
(2) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the registration of a trade mark in respect of which a right of priority exists shall not be refused or revoked by reason only of the use of the trade mark by some other person in Malaysia during the said period of six months.
(3) The application for the registration of a trade mark in respect of which a right of priority exists-
(a) shall be made and dealt with in the same manner as an ordinary application for registration under this Act; and
(b) shall specify the Convention country or prescribed foreign country, as the case may be, in which the application for protection, or the first such application, was made and the date on which such application for protection was made.
(4) As regards prescribed foreign countries, this section shall apply only for the duration of the period the order continues in force in respect of that country.
(5) For the purposes of this Act, the Minister may, by order published in the Gazette, declare a country as having made arrangements with Malaysia for the reciprocal protection of trade marks.